Parent Payment Schedules Case Study

The Challenge

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We spoke with Toni Martin, Director of Finance, and Amanda Locke, Fees Manager, about their main challenges before implementing the Parent Payment Schedules Integration.

Labour-intensive setups of parent direct debits
Risk of handling sensitive financial information
The need for a better parent experience
Manual forms which were not PCI-compliant
A paper-based approach
End-of-year reporting headaches

Before the integration, Marist College Ashgrove had a manual approach to school fees. This involved using manual forms that were not PCI-compliant. These forms were then sent off to their bank for the direct debits to be created. This process was not only time-consuming but also gave the finance team no clarity on the number of parents that had been set up until they were well into Term 2.

The following benefits of the integration allowed Marist College Ashgrove to deliver parents a more self-serve payment option and customise it to their needs:

Seamless and Complete Integration: Everything is done within the Parent Portal and no new system or logins are required for your team or parents.
Easy Parent Set-Up: Parents can easily set up their payments in the Parent Portal, removing the need for sending and receiving forms to set up payments.
Increase Direct Debit Uptake: Reduce the number of parents finance teams need to chase up.
Automatic Processing and Reconciliation: Everything is automated saving your finance teams valuable time.
Parents Manage Their Own Account: Parents can easily update their bank or card details in the Parent Portal, removing the need to handle this sensitive data.

Software mockup2

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Security and compliance are other important benefits of the integration. School EasyPay follows the Payment Card Industry's Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and is a Certified Level 1 provider. For schools, this means:

Full card numbers never enter the school premises or the school's IT systems.
TASS or School EasyPay do not store full card details. The integration uses secure tokenisation for advanced security.
The integration also provides schools with RBA surcharging compliance. Schools can choose whether they pay the processing fee or pass it on to parents.

Since introducing Parent Payment Schedules at Marist College Ashgrove, the school has seen about 73% of their parent community take up a schedule while another 23% pay upfront. Alongside this success, Marist College Ashgrove has also seen improvements with:

Streamlined processing
Higher success rate of payments
Clearer communication with parents
Better visibility over the fee process
Reduced end-of-year admin and headaches

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"We had great support from Wendy at TASS, who came out, helped implement and set up the system, guided us through the billing process, and just made sure everything was set up correctly so that we could run with the new system."

Amanda LockeFees Manager - Marist College Ashgrove

"We were lucky enough to be on the payment system because we can delete payments for parents suffering from financial distress and add them in differently. We've gotten rid of manual processes that made it integrated into TASS."

Toni MartinDirector of Finance - Marist College Ashgrove